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Monthly Archives: August 2011

I am pleased to be able to tell you that the formal launch of my memoirs in the United States began earlier this week. The book was made available on the web sites of major retailers, such as Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Border and Chapters Indigo over the last month. There is usually a period of a couple of months for retailers to gradually begin their promotions, and this is a very quiet time of the year, being the end of summer vacations.

I do not have sales figures, as these don’t become available for some months yet. However, Barnes & Noble has conferred their Rising Star designation immediately and will be featuring the book. Early reactions from the industry have been most encouraging. The professionals in the publishing industry have been telling us that the book is a well paced page-turner and is well written. They have been impressed with the number of events and persons the book deals with and find my story to be a fascinating one.

I myself consider that I have been at the centre of a number of fascinating stories, and the number of people who have helped me over the years, such as the lawyers, activists and the group I call The Dozen, are as much the story as me. This is also part of their stories. It is also a Canadian story, about how Canadian society has dealt with the matters surrounding me and those who have stood with me, for me and against me.

I cannot begin to yet again express my gratitude to those who helped me write these memoirs. The editors at iUniverse were amazing. My personal lawyer, Sender Herschorn, reviewed the manuscript and made countless recommendations. In the early years the man called Scott in the book and the woman called Camilla, helped me draft some of the chapters about those times. This is their book too.

You may have just started reading my blogs now so let me introduce myself. I am Terri-Jean Bedford, Canada’s most famous dominatrix. I presume you know what a dominatrix is. If you don’t you are going to learn some very interesting things. On my website terrijeanbedford.com you can order my book. That tells you about all I can about the craft of the dominatrix. It also tells about my legal battles fought over a period of 15 years.

It is because of those legal battles that I became famous. Before I came into the public eye I had an early childhood of severe poverty, a youth of abuse and neglect, and wild teenage years filled with drugs and prostitution. My years as a young woman were like that too, until I became a dominatrix. When I was charged with prostitution despite not selling sex I fought the charges and supporters came from all over. My final legal battle, waged beside two other courageous women and with three great lawyers headed by Professor Alan Young – a Canadian institution in himself. It led to the striking down of Canada’s prostitution laws; a stunning legal victory that is still under appeal. I am now in my fifties, very ill and may not have long to live. I spend any time I can with my grandson and daughter and close friends.

My supporters wanted me to tell my story in book form. Right from the time I was raided I kept notes and drafted chapters. I would sometimes put the draft on the market to get reactions and raise a bit of money. So the book that was published in June and is now being launched formally in August is really the completion of a work in progress. I was going to finish it and self publish in 2005 or 2006 but when the constitutional challenge began it seemed to make sense to wait a bit longer and tell a more interesting story. My main reason for writing the book was to explain why I fought, what I fought, why I got so much support and to tell the world what needs to be done to protect freedom and improve the safety of women.

If the book makes money that’s great. But I wanted to be heard, and from what the marketing people overseeing the formal launch of the book tell me I am being read and will be for a very long time.